How to make scopes that actually magnify using materials like glass?
It is posibbly to do it. Try building a Kepler or a Galilei scope. A kepler scope is easy to build, but the image is inverted. Here is one I made:



To zoom, scale up the objective lens along the point where the empty is located, or scale down all the other objects along that point. The background image is missing, replace it with anything to see the sope working.